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What next, a DOS version?? [Free tool and source code to temporarily prevent a computer from entering sleep mode - 32-bit and 64-bit versions now support Windows XP!]

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  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2011
    Thanks for a great application! I use it on my Windows 7 PC (the policy to force hibernate haven't been applied to XP PCs) I don't know if an option to use Away mode might also be useful? If it somehow uses less power than having a fully running PC it might, especially if the PC will enter away mode on a timer. Is there any advantages to using PowerSetRequest on Windows 7 above SetThreadExecutionState? Does ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED disable any other parts of the power management? (Disks for example) (And if not, is there a way to disable it (I know ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED works for the display) if an application requires low latency disk access for some reason? (I can see that something like a database server might want to wake up disks when receiving a new connection, since they are likely to be needed by a subsequent query))

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2011
    Gert, I'm glad you like it, thanks! :) Away mode is an interesting idea - I've added it to my TODO list to think about for next time. PowerSetRequest looks like it doesn't do much more than SetThreadExecutionState except for allowing you to provide a localizable string in the call to PowerCreateRequest. And because the MSDN docs say it's only available on Windows 7 and later, I'm not sure I'm going to jump on it so soon after delivering Windows XP support... :) I don't think that ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED disables other aspects of power management (for example, I'm pretty sure I've come back to my computer and heard the disks spin up). But if you're running a server, you probably want to change the machine's true power settings instead of counting on Insomnia to keep it awake. That said, if you really want to use Insomnia, you could always write a little program or batch file to write a small file to the disk every N minutes if you want to be sure they keep spinning...

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2011
    Gert, Lots of interesting ideas there - but as you note, I'm not an expert on Windows power management internals. :) I skimmed over the document you link to just now and it mainly served to reaffirm my impression that the new Windows 7 APIs don't enable a lot of new functionality for a program that's already using SetThreadExecutionState successfully. I'll try to keep an eye on this, though, in case things change in the future. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

  • Anonymous
    November 27, 2011
    I ran this on Windows 7 SP1, both the 64 bit native version and the .NET version.  Neither prevented my computer from sleeping!  To double check, I changed the sleep timeout to 1 minute, and sure enough after a minute the display shut of and music playback stopped.  Am I missing something?

  • Anonymous
    November 27, 2011
    Figured it out...my speakers are in my monitor and shutting of the display turns them off.  The music was still playing.  Spoke too soon.

  • Anonymous
    November 28, 2011
    Will, Glad you got that sorted out - thanks for following up! :)

  • Anonymous
    April 15, 2012
    Thanks for the app! I'm looking forward for you to add a feature of preventing the computer from being locked. At my job we have a group policy that automatically locks computers after like 10 minutes for security reasons, and once my computer is locked I no longer get sound notifications from Outlook when I get a new e-mail.

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2012
    Bags, I just did a fresh download using CURL and verified it using UNZIP - the file I link to is okay. What you might try is to clear your browser cache and/or downloading the file to a different location using a different tool/browser - maybe something in the middle got a little confused? Good luck!

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2013
    I know this is a pretty old post but I just stumbled on your app and it works great!  Makes it easy for me to download large files now without worrying about the computer going to sleep.  Just wanted to say a huge thank you!